Sick
by Not Poignant
Summary: Prompt from the Livejournal glee-kink-meme: "Puck/Rachel-I'd love to see Rachel sick, and Puck taking care of her. Especially if "taking care of her" involves..." well, you know...


**Title:** Taking Care of You is Sex, Right?

**Spoilers:** what spoilers?  
**Warnings:** First Time, Smexin'

**Author's Note / Summary:** _Prompt from the Livejournal glee-kink-meme: "Puck/Rachel-I'd love to see Rachel sick, and Puck taking care of her. Especially if "taking care of her" involves sex to make her feel better." Couldn't pass it up. Standard disclaimer about me not owning the characters and stuff applies._

They had all caught it, a virus that started with sore throats and weakness, and knocked almost all the kids out of Glee. All except Rachel, who started on a regimen of Echinacea, honey and lemon drinks, zinc, and about forty other things that made Puck's head hurt.

And then as the rest of the Glee kids were starting to recover, and Puck's own voice had moved from non-existent to 'sexy-phone-sex-hoarse,' Rachel came in looking pale.

'I don't think I can practice today, Mr. Schue,' she said, by way of explanation, her voice worn, and looking heartbroken. Puck frowned to himself. He didn't usually care about these things, but a sick girl brought out his fleeting, inconsistent, 'why do I have that again?' caring side. Especially a sick girl with wide, disappointed eyes and a pouting lip. Also, he was willing to place bets that Rachel wouldn't talk as much when she was sick, which was always a winner.

He looked around the room, shrugged because he was bored and said, 'I can't sing properly anyway, I'll take the Diva home.'

Mr. Schue nodded, Quinn shot Puck a look of disgust, and Rachel actually winced.

'I'm not sure...'

'Actually it sounds like a good idea.' Mr Schue cut in, 'this thing hits pretty hard, and the sooner you're resting, the sooner you'll be back hitting those high notes.'

Rachel sighed and subsided without saying anything, and Puck smirked, he could both do his good deed for the week, and get the satisfaction of seeing Rachel in one of the few hours of her life where she wasn't talking as much.

The drive home was fairly quiet. Rachel shuffled uncomfortably on the seat, looked over at him, looked out the window, and eventually slumped in the chair and looked stubbornly out of the windscreen.

'You're one of those chicks aren't you? Hates being sick. Too many things to be doing. Too many songs to be singing, or something. Too many second-hand stores to trawl for old women's skirts.'

Rachel glared at him. She grit her teeth. Puck remembered the first day the virus hit, his throat had been insane with the painful. When they slowed to a stop at the lights, he leaned across her and ignored her shifting to get away from him, opened the glovebox, and handed her a packet of medicated grape throat lozenges.

'They're good. Honest.'

She looks at him gratefully.

'Thank you.' She manages, as she takes one and starts sucking on it. Puck wills himself not to think dirty thoughts, and then decides that's just not in his nature. And she's going to taste like grape now.

'These are good.' She says softly, a moment later. 'It's helping.'

'I'm not so bad, after all, am I?' He drawls, raising an eyebrow. She smiles shyly, and he's caught off guard by that expression on her pale face. Sometimes, when it's just the two of them, he slips into a space where everything quietens down and her abrasiveness disappears, and his need to pick, pick, pick evaporates.

And then she says; 'It's one lozenge, Puck, not a cure for cancer,' and he slips straight out of that space and decides that Rachel can be a bitch when she's sick.

Her fathers aren't home when she gets home, and she walks up the stairs to her room slowly, Puck trailing behind her. She said he didn't have to come in, but he wanted to make sure she actually rested, instead of doing what he thought she might do when sick; work.

She starts fussing around her room, opening up books on homework, looking like she has no intention of lying down. He shakes his head, walks to her bed and draws back the blankets, pats them loudly.

'Rest means actual resting.'

'I hardly think doing homework first is going to really stop me from getting sick now.' She says, but she looks worn, and tired, and he shakes his head at her.

'I mean it.'

'While you're here? What, you want to watch me get changed too?'

'Are you offering?' He grins at her, and she rolls her eyes and says nothing. 'Fine. I will give you five minutes, and when I get back in this room, you had better be changed and in that bed. I mean it.'

He leaves the room, closes the door behind him, and then after a moment walks down the stairs and into the kitchen. He's not real familiar with the place, but it doesn't take a genius to work out a kettle, and the lemon and honey was easy to find, as she'd already been drinking it. He measures out generous amounts of honey, generous amounts of lemon, and walks back up five minutes later with that and a cold bottle of water so she stays hydrated. His method of looking after himself when sick is 'sleep until better,' but he figures Rachel might not be so good at the sleep thing, so the other bits and pieces might actually help.

When he walks in, she is under the covers, sitting, blankets pulled up high. She looks surprised to see the mug and the water. When he sets them down she grabs the mug, sniffs it, and looks at him gratefully.

'I don't like being sick.' She says softly. He sighs and sits down on the bed next to her, wonders what she puts on when she's planning on sleeping. He wonders if it's anything like that nightgown he dreamed about.

'No one does.' He said.

'I really don't like it. My Dads are great, but they don't,' she swallows and winces at the pain it causes her. Puck winces a little with her. 'They don't really do that whole fussing after you when you're sick. I mean they do so much for me, don't get me wrong. But they're not the fussing types.'

Puck furrowed his brow, because he knew how much that sucked from personal experience, and because he has learnt that he actually does like fussing over sick people. One of his Aunts had needed chemotherapy to get over cancer, and he actually liked visiting her every day, checking to see that she had what she needed, watching crazy romantic comedies with her so that she wasn't alone during some of the worst of it. Not that he'd ever tell anyone. iEver/i. Shit like that could ruin his reputation.

He leans forward and feels her forehead. It's warm, but not too hot. And instead he feels her soft, smooth skin under his fingers. Takes in those wide, vulnerable eyes watching him uncertainly. There was something in the drawn nature of her face, and he just shook his head.

'You really don't handle being sick very well, do you?'

'I hate it.' She whispered.

He scoots closer, moving the hand that was on her forehead down so that it cups her cheek, touches her hair. She closes her eyes briefly, opens them again, her eyes ask him questions, and he ignores them.

When he kisses her, it was nothing like the last time. Her lips are clean of flavoured gloss and taste like lemon, honey and grape. He licks them gently, and cradles her head in his hand. Her mouth opens to him on a sigh, and her hands come out from under the covers and reach towards him, but stop on the bed before they actually touch him. When their tongues touch, she moves backwards.

'You might...catch it again.' She says, and he shrugs.

'I handle being sick just fine. And you are just so fucking precious.'

He leans in and kisses her again, and this time she leans forwards and the covers shift down. When he draws back and sees that she's wearing a pale, pink slip, he thinks there may actually be a God after all.

'I have condoms.' He says stupidly, and then fights the urge to smack himself in the forehead for that one.

'So do I.' She says softly. She blushes, reaches into her top draw, shifts around underneath panties, which Puck just gazes at, letting his eyes etch this into his memory forever. She draws out a small pink decorative container. She hands it to him and he opens it, sees the condoms inside and whistles. Then he puts the container back on her bedside cabinet and leans in and kisses her again. Sex would be nice, but this isn't about that. It's about taking her mind off the aches and pains, the sore throat.

He's kissed her before, so he's not surprised at how responsive she is. Her hands aren't shy, as they drift underneath his shirt. And her lips match his for passion. When she draws away to catch her breath, she swallows and then scrunches her face up.

'Throat hurts?' He says softly, and she nods, mutely.

'Let me take care of that.' He kisses her mouth once, and then trails down and kisses her neck softly and gently. It's hot under his lips, and he licks it, knowing the air will cool the wet trails down. Rachel gasps, and he reaches up with fingers and trails them down the other side of her neck.

A switch seems to go off in her head, an invisible one, and suddenly she is ireally/i into it. She reaches down, grasps his shirt, pulls it off over his head and then begins stroking and squeezing his arms, before moving to his chest. Impatiently, she grabs one of his hands and places it on her breast, over the slip, and he runs his palm over it instinctively. She arches a little.

'Well, the doctor ordered rest, and I bet you'll sleep pretty well after this.'

'Shut up, Noah.' She said, though there was no barbs in her voice, and he caught the hint of a smile playing on her lips when he chanced a glance in her direction.

After that, Puck helped Rachel take off her slip, insisting that she was too weak to do it on her own, but really he just wanted to do it himself. And then his lips found their way everywhere. The corner of her ear, the place where her hair met the side of her neck, the dip in her collarbone, and then down over her breasts, across the nipple. She was making small, choked off noises, saving herself the pain of the louder stuff he knew she'd probably do if her throat didn't feel like razors were growing in it. She arched when he drew his palms from her upper ribs all the way down to her hip-bones, and then let his thumbs rest on the edge of her panties, which were an unexpected black. She reached down and flicked the button on his jeans open, moved the fly down like she'd been doing this all her life. He shook his head a little. He was in trouble here.

'Tell me you're not too tired for this.' He said, wishing he could blame his hoarseness entirely on recovering from the virus.

In answer, Rachel unhooked her panties off her hips and legs with one hand. Her expression was one Puck couldn't read, serious and daring and vulnerable all at the same time. He leaned in and kissed her until her eyelids lowered and her expression softened. His fingers trailed through her curls, and then hesitated before trailing down between her legs. Rachel moaned then, anyway, and laughed a little, despairingly.

'You're coming over tomorrow to make up for destroying my throat today.' She said, a glimmer of that primness coming through, despite her continued gasps and hard exhales as he explored her wetness. He barely ghosted over her clitoris, and ran his fingers slowly everywhere else, getting a feel for her. He was not a man who was scared of pussy, having had countless older women introduce him to it. When he slipped a finger into her, Rachel's hips bucked into him, and she bit the part of his arm she could reach.

'Damn, Berry.' He groaned, feeling how tight she was. He didn't wait, used another finger, looked longingly over at the pink container of condoms, covered in girly flower stickers which was just so iRachel/i. He splayed his fingers, shook his head, because she was still a virgin and man, maybe he ishouldn't/i.

He started to withdraw, muttered something about how her first time shouldn't be like this. And she pressed a sound out of her throat in frustration and handed him the container on her bed-stand.

'Come on, Puck, now is not the time to hesitate. It's not like I particularly want to be a virgin anyway, I gave up on the romantic notion of a woman losing her virginity being a special occasion a long, long time ago. I'm not naive. I'm already in pain, I think today would be a good day to not have to worry about my hymen anymore.'

Puck closed his eyes, because at any other time, her little speech would have turned him off. Rachel talking. Rachel talking a lot. Rachel using technical terms like hymen. He shook his head. He should not be enjoying this.

'Shut up, Rachel.' He said, but he smiled warmly at her as he took the container out of her hands and removed a condom. 'What the Gleequeen wants, she gets.'

'Good.' She said, arching a brow, and smiling anyway.

iAwesome/i, he thinks. But instead of putting the condom on straight away, he goes back to teasing her. He licks, and then gently bites her nipples, his fingers find their way inside of her again. When she reaches for his penis, he bats her hand away and tells her that she should be resting, in the driest tone he can muster. Rachel relaxes by degrees into the bed, eyes closed, sighing one moment, and then whimpering the next. Her legs spread, and he settles comfortably between them, thinking that even if he gets the virus again, even if he ends up in hospital, this will be pretty much worth it.

He works Rachel over until she begins tensing against his fingers, and he thinks – as he withdraws and puts the condom on – that at any other time he would've just made her come. But maybe she'd be way too tight after that, and he doesn't want this to hurt anymore than it has to. So he ignores her mutinous, 'get your hand back there you bastard,' gaze, and moves himself so that he's at her entrance instead.

'Do it.' She says softly, daring him with her warm brown eyes. He shakes his head at her, half-smiles, and then pushes in gently, slowly. Withdraws, does it again. She bites the inside of her lip and then nods at him. He watches her face intently as he withdraws, and then pushes again. When Rachel winces in pain, he winces with her, and then the cognitive part of his brain is sucked into the vortex of how hot and tight and wet she is, and he keeps moving in, until he's buried inside of her.

_iJeeeeeeeesus/i, _he thinks.

Rachel's chest is heaving beneath him and a fine sheen of sweat has broken out all over her body. He licks at her neck again, and then bites her collarbone very gently when she pushes her hips up against him.

'Move, Noah.' She says, using his first name like some kind of prayer.

'It doesn't hurt too much?'

'I'm imaginative. I was expecting worse.' Her voice has a breathless quality that makes him forget about how she's doing – she's Rachel, she'll tell him if she wants him to do something different – and focus on moving inside of her. He withdraws, pushes back in, and his chest hurts at how much he's enjoying this. Rachel seems to feel the same way, because she arches up into him, one of her legs wraps up around his back. He decides he's seriously underestimated how awesome Rachel might be in the sack.

This part is easy for him. Easy to cant his hips backwards and reach down and find her clit, easy to listen to the way her breathing changes when he does that, easy to keep a varied, undulating rhythm going, and easy to watch her face skate across the kind of desire and tension that made her even hotter than usual. He thinks about the Glee kids stuck doing practice, and grins. At that point, he wishes someone would make him a medal for how great he is.

He knows when Rachel gets close, because she says so, followed by, 'oh god, Noah, Noah,' which makes him suddenly closer himself, fighting the urge to spill his load right there. She chases after her orgasm the same way she chases after everything else, with the same fervour and wide-eyed determination. With a pro-activeness he's never encountered in another young woman, her hips find their own rhythm, and she arches up to kiss him fiercely, teeth holding his lip between them, before meeting his tongue with her own.

When she comes, she moans into his mouth, and his arm goes from supporting himself to wrapping around her, holding her against him. He closes his eyes and feels her spasm against him, and even through the condom, it's incredible. He groans against her lips, and comes on a series of deep thrusts, feeling that white-hot blaze of catharsis come over him. He closes his eyes, and is swept away on it.

It feels like hours later, but it's only a couple of minutes, when he leans back a little and looks down at her. Rachel's hair is mussed, her eyes are closed, her mouth is half-open as she continues to catch her breath. When he withdraws, she doesn't even wince, just rolls her head to the side and makes the tiniest of moans.

'You are...' he says, but can't complete the sentence. Too many words he can't say, and he ignores them all and just says, 'wow,' instead.

'I can handle being wow.' Rachel whispers, as he removes the condom, throws it into her wastepaper basket.

'Tired?' He asks her, because he is. She nods, says nothing, and he knows he's right; Rachel being quieter than usual is one of the best things iever/i.

He kisses her a few more times, and then hands her the mug of honey and lemon, which has cooled down.

'It'll help.' He says awkwardly, and she looks at him as she sips, and then drinks down half of it. She makes a face.

'How strong did you make this? Do we have any honey ileft?/i'

'Yes. I'm not an idiot.' He says indignantly, and she puts the mug down and touches his arm instead, looking apologetic.

'Don't go.' She says, and then moves over and makes room for him on the bed. He nods, but first goes to pick up her slip and hand it back to her. She puts it on gratefully, and snuggles down under the covers, looking about as adorable as the plush teddybear on the chest of drawers behind her. He shakes his head and pulls the covers down before lying on top of them.

'Can't have your Dads' thinking I'm taking advantage of you while you're sick.'

'Of course not,' she says, drolly, before allowing him one of those radiant smiles that was infectious. He smiled back, and then reached up and cleared some of her hair out of her face.

'You're good at taking care of people.' She said, though there was an impish quality to her voice.

'I'm also good at telling sick people to shut up and go to sleep.' He said, kissing her forehead and closing his own eyes.

He listened, waited, and then a few minutes later Rachel's breathing went deep and even. He relaxed more fully on her bed, looked around the room and rolled his eyes at the amazing turn of events of the day, and fell asleep soon afterwards. He hoped Rachel stayed sick for a while, so he could keep looking after her.


End file.
